[Editor: Vineet Buch shared this story of a leash-less adventure in strong winds on the surfski newsgroup. I felt it worth sharing with a wider community, so here it is...]
Vineet
I went out solo from Redwood City Harbor Sunday, 2/25 morning ~9:30am in my Huki S1-A surfski; the forecast called for strong gusty southeast (onshore) winds, but it was calm when I started, and I changed my original plan of staying in the Redwood City sloughs and instead paddled southeast out of the harbor in the open San Francisco Bay to the Dumbarton Bridge.